If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties - someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad; if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
- John F. Kennedy

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Health Insurance As Slavery

Just one of the bizarre ironies of the current debate is the libertarian view that universal health care threatens our freedom. If libertarian-minded Americans would open their eyes, they’d see that just the opposite is true. How many Americans remain in dead-end jobs for the health benefits, however meager they might be? How many entrepreneurs never launch their independent initiatives because they can’t risk the loss of health care?

[snip]
Food, shelter, clothing etc. are things we can provide for ourselves for the most part. Health care and health insurance are not. The staggering cost of health care today in the U.S. requires we have insurance or be independently wealthy. One bit of bad luck in the health arena and without insurance you and or your family is bankrupt. Like Glenn says...we remain tied to a job we don't like because of health insurance and the security it provides. Some of us are lucky to have jobs or careers we love and health insurance but there are many of us who don't or hesitate to strike out on our own for fear of what even a minor health emergency might do to us.
This really needs to change. We are not a free country as long this situation exists.